Soupçon Beachside Cafe

Cafe
There's a little cafe about 10 minutes drive from my place that I had heard makes great coffee, and I finally got to try it out the other day. The weather was rainy and miserable so I had to sit inside, however I imagine it would be lovely sitting outside on a sunny day looking out at the ocean.

Soupcon cafe is in Ishikawa, and is really laid back. The owners kids are hanging around and the furniture is mis-matched and comfy. I didn't try the food this time, but will definitely be back!

The outdoor seating area

Delicious Latte

A peak at the menu

View out at the ocean.


Coffee cravings

cafés
Now I've been in Okinawa and away from Melbourne for 4 months, i've been a bit homesick for my old cafe frequenting lifestyle, whether it was going out for a delicious family breakfast on the weekend, or just having a large number of quality cafes to go to while I was at work. Okinawa is much much sleepier, and is definitely lacking in quality coffee, so when I read about a cafe in Naha (about 50 minutes drive from my house - this is my level of desperation) run by a Melbourne couple, I had to go check it out.
The food menu was awesome! It was full of all the breakfast foods i've been craving, and the coffee was delicious, although I was a little disappointed they didn't have an option for soy milk (but hey, I can't have everything, right?). You can find their website here (Japanese only) and their Facebook page here.

The cafe is located on a hilly street in Naha near Shuri Castle


The coffee machine and kitchen

I love the communal table

The delicious sounding menu! I need to go back and try it all

There's baked beans, ricotta and poached egg on toast under the leafy greens

I had a latte and Griff had a hot chocolate

Shuri Castle 首里城

Japan
Although I've now been in Okinawa for 4 months, I only just made it to Shuri Castle this past weekend. Griff saw a picture of it a few weeks ago, and thought it was a temple, but since I told him it was, in fact, a castle, he's been asking to go to the castle every weekend since. 

Seeing as the dog and little boy seem to like waking me up at 5:30-6am every morning at the moment, we were up and out of the house in time to get to Shuri Castle for the opening ceremony, which happens at 8:30 every morning. I'm really glad we went as early as we did, because by the time we were leaving there were bus loads of tour groups walking in as we were walking out. When we were looking around it wasn't crowded at all. Having an early waking small child is useful for some things I suppose....

Griff was super happy to have his photo taken under the gate





The other early risers to the Castle

The opening ceremony

The main castle building



Some nice bonsai



View of the main building from inside another

The King's "throne" for want of a better word



View of Naha from the Castle

Nabee Beach ナビ ビーチ Manza Beach

beach
A few weeks ago we had friends over from Australia so spent a lot of time at the beach and/or snorkelling. It was fantastic! One of my favourite beaches, not too far from home is Manza Beach. The waters are crystal clear, it's fine for swimming at both low and high tide and you can snorkel right off the beach. You definitely need reef shoes though cause there are sea urchins all over the place. It's right next to Nabee beach, which has a netted swim area, if you prefer, but I like walking a little bit to Manza beach because there are lots of shady areas to sit close to the beach, and the snorkelling gets me everytime!
Crystal waters



Lots of shady nooks
There's a roped off section which is Nabee Beach


There are sea urchins everywhere so you really need reef shoes to be safe

This urchin was the craziest/creepiest thing. If you look closely you can see two eyes and an orange mouth!





















I spent ages following this guy around with my camera so I could get a good shot of him.

Temporary single parent

Okinawa
The good news is that H got a great job offer over here, the bad news is that she has had to return to Australia to wait for the visa to be issued, and we don't know how long this will take. So for the past week (and a day - not that i'm counting or anything), I've been running solo over here with the parenting and life situation. I'm not good at it. I honestly have no idea how people do long distance relationships for anything more than a few weeks (I've found one week to be torture) - hats off to the people that do. Hurry home my lady!

In this week Okinawa was to be hit by a typhoon, my first since we arrived. I had to bring any loose items inside the house and made sure all the windows were closed properly, buy torches, water etc in case the power went out. Luckily it wasn't very strong, so there was no loss of power, which meant that I didn't get my expected typhoon day off work :(

Taking the boys for a walk

Mushi has been getting adventurous

I've been binge watching Friends with the pets after Griff goes to bed. It's like a warm hug

I love Netflix

I took Griff to get a haircut

The final product - looks like he's aged a year

Preparing for the typhoon - the table became a pretend car

Trees strapped up prior to typhoon Noul

My typhoon company

I had to throw together a last minute bento for Griff the day after the typhoon

Because it's really hard to try and walk the dog during the week with a 3 year old in tow, i've occasionally been coming home from work for lunch and taking the puppy for his work. It's been really relaxing actually and nice to get out of the air-conditioned office and out in to the beautiful weather.

Lunch-time walks with Ollie

Hot day needs a dip in the ocean after his walk